Archives for August 2012

When it comes to teaching tapping children are one of my favorite groups. They take to tapping right away because they don’t have many of the hang-ups adults do of needing to understand everything or concerns about looking foolish when they tap.

Like adults, when kids tap they become happier and healthier. One of the bonuses of teaching them to tap is we help them to clear issues whilst they are small, preventing them from growing into life-long issues.

In this interview I talk to Till Shilling about introducing kids to tapping and how to get into schools and classrooms.

About Till: Till has studied with many of the masters of EFT including Gary Craig, Dr Patricia Carrington and others. He has actively supported the development of this methodology worldwide and has led trainings and workshops in Slovenia, Germany, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, the U.S. and Mexico.

Q: I am worried that if I say negative phrases I will bring negative things into my life. How can I use EFT without having to use negative phrases?

I receive this question a lot. To answer it we need to look at what is happening when we are tapping and how the words we say impact our success while tapping.

It is important to remember that what we are saying is much less important than what we are feeling when we tap.

The words we say while tapping are not magic.

What is important is where our focus and attention is when we are tapping. If we say, “this pain in my knee…this pain in my knee…” over and over again when we tap but we are thinking about everything that needs to be done once we finish tapping, then the knee isn’t going to feel better.

It is not the words but the focus.

This plays itself out in some interesting ways when we say both positive and negative phrases. To understand this let’s look at a weight release example. Let’s say the client wants to lose 40 pounds but is stuck because of the fact he has failed before and is worried that he will lose the weight only to gain it back again.

Positive v Negative Phrases

There are two ways to approach tapping on this issue.

First, we could address the fear of losing weight only to gain it back again head on. We would tap saying something like:

I have failed before at losing weight…and I’m worried that I will fail again…every time I lose the weight it creeps back…this time will be different…not only do I have a plan to lose the weight…but I have a support system in place…to help me keep it off.

Second, we could decide that we are only going to tap on the positive:

All of these statements are great things to be tapping on, but what is being said is not all that is going on. Every time one of those phrases is said out loud if there is any part of the system that doesn’t believe the phrase to be true, the critical voice will speak up to voice its objections. It might go something like this:

What is said out loud: I am going to lose weight.What the internal critical voice says in response: And then gain it right back.

Out loud: I am going keep the weight off.Critical voice: No you aren’t. You failed before and you will fail again.

Out loud: I am going to look awesome.Critical voice: Only for a short period of time.

Out loud: I am going to feel so much better.Critical voice: And then the weight will come back and you will feel like crap.

You can see that when we only focus only on the positive and there is a part of us that doesn’t believe the positive statement, the negative will show up.

The good news about this that it doesn’t matter if we use positive or negative phrases because either way we will find our way to tapping on the issues needing attention.

Which Should I Tap On?

The question becomes “Should I use positive or negative phrases while tapping?” For me, the answer is both.

If I recognize a specific limiting belief or block, like the fear of gaining the weight back, my tapping will be most effective if I go right at that issue.

At the same time when I state the goal I want to achieve in the positive I will find my way to self talk and limiting beliefs that I didn’t know existed.

I recommend when tapping to alternate between both positive and negative phrases so that you get both of these benefits.

People throw the word trauma around a lot and because of this it is easily misunderstood. Some people treat trauma too casually and end up trying to work on issues for which they aren’t trained. Others are too nervous of treating trauma and aren’t willing to tap on even the simplest of issues because they are worried about what they might uncover in the deepest recesses of their past.

This difficulty can be true for both practitioners and for people who are using tapping to work on their own.

The best way to approach trauma lies somewhere in the middle of these two extremes. In this interview with Sophia Cayer we explore what we really mean by the word trauma, how we are impacted by traumatic events, and how we work on them with tapping.

I personally found a number of the things we talked about in this interview surprising and very helpful for my own work.

About Sophia Cayer: An EFT Founding Master, Sophia has been devoted to a full-time EFT practice and teaching EFT for more than 12 years. Specializing in trauma and abuse, she is well-known for her ability to resolve core issues and, with EFT, for helping clients to reshape their lives and gain a level of comfort with their new “norm”. For more than 22 years she has been dedicated to helping clients define and generate the solutions to resolve challenges and achieve their goals.

You know what you want, you know the right steps to take, and you just don’t take action.

(And to make matters worse, you then beat yourself up for not doing what you need to do.)

I use EFT first and foremost for self sabotage.

Not only do I tap on self sabotage every day, it is the one thing that has made the most profound impact in my life.

I want to teach you how I deal with self sabotage.

I have created a 10 part “Getting Out Of Your Own Way: A Quick Start Guide” and I would like you to have it free of charge.

Here is how you can receive it.

If you sign up you will also receive the 10 part “Getting Out Of Your Own Way: A Quick Start Guide”.

Starting the day you sign up, you will receive an email every other day until you have all 10 parts.

This will not interrupt the regular emails I send to you. It is just an added bonus.

I Need Your Input

Since you have been around the block a few times with EFT I would really value your feedback. Let me know how the steps are working for you, what is going well, what needs improvement, and in which places you think I have completely lost my mind.

Just reply to any of the emails to let me know your thoughts.

Sign up now! I know you want to stop the self sabotage. Get started on knocking it out.

We had been working on an issue for a number of sessions and he felt like we were dealing with the same issues, with the same complaints, with the same outcomes.

The truth was that he had made a lot of progress AND he was getting the same outcome.

When this happens it can be so frustrating because we have put in the work, we know we have healed many issues, but it doesn’t feel like it is bearing any fruit.

I’m Stuck In Quicksand!

Sometimes making progress feels like trying to get out of quicksand.

There is a huge difference between being in quicksand up to your neck and being in quicksand up to your knees. When you are in quicksand up to your neck you are only 10% free and when you are in up to your knees you are 75% free.

But there is a problem. Even though being in quicksand up to your knees is much better than being in quicksand up to your neck, you are still stuck.

The same thing can happen when we are working on a persistent issue. We can spend time (even a great deal of time) working on an issue. Although we have released a great deal around the issue we are still stuck because the part that is left continues to have a grip on us.

It is easy to feel discouraged and like we are failing in the healing process because we are not reaping the rewards of our progress. The good news is that it’s much easier to get out of quicksand when we are only up to our knees, and we truly are much closer to freedom and healing, but we may fail to notice this because we are focusing on still being stuck.

If you feel like you are spinning your wheels with your tapping here is a tapping script you can use:

I have been working on this issue for a very long time…I want to be free of this issue…I know tapping has worked for me in the past…and I want it to work now…the fact that I have done so much work…and not seen any real progress is frustrating…I feel like giving up on this issue…I feel like giving up on tapping…but I choose to know that tapping is a process…I know healing is a process…there are times when I will make progress with an issue…and still not be free of the issue…sometimes healing an issue is like getting out of quicksand…I can make progress when I am working my way towards freedom…but I am still stuck…it is possible to recognize that even when I am not completely free of an issue…I am closer to being free of the issue…with each round of tapping I become a little clearer…with each tapping session I become a little clearer…even if I am not completely out of the quicksand on this issue…I am more free than I was before…I am closer to being free of this…I give myself permission to keep moving forward…knowing that with each moment of healing I experience…I am that much closer to being free of this issue…it is ok that I get frustrated at the fact that it doesn’t feel like I am making progress…it is ok that I feel this isn’t working as fast as I would like…this is because there is a part of me that wants better…I am glad there is a part of me that wants better…and I want this part of me to keep working for better…as bit-by-bit I clear this issue.

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Meet Gene Monterastelli

Gene Monterastelli is a Brooklyn based EFT practitioner who in addition to work with clients and groups regularly writes and records about how to use the tapping to move from self-sabotage to productive action.Gene's Full Bio & Services